The projects in the cluster Stage focus on how the study of staging, exhibiting, and curating Jewish material culture, objects, and artworks in ritual settings and ceremonies, as well as in private, semi-public, or public art exhibitions, provides a unique perspective on understanding how Jewish material culture is integrated into dramaturgical practices of culture. Removed from their previous environments and cultural contexts and reinstalled in new habitats, these objects need not only to be identified and classified, but also to tell a story. This story emerges through the staging and performance of newly arranged and revitalized objects, representing their “second” and further “afterlives” beyond their original affiliations.

Drawing on art history, theatre and performance studies, memory studies, provenance research, and research on looted art, the researchers will explore how Jewish material culture has been used in new cultural environments to convey, negotiate, and stabilise specific experiences and historical knowledge. Through these practices, identities are reaffirmed and traditions performed, serving as temporary or complementary lieux de mémoire that enable materialisation and localisation to reproduce a mediated space. The researchers will examine how the Jewish past is represented and exhibited in different configurations through the new agency that objects acquire through processes of migration and displacement following significant historical events such as economic crises, political upheavals, expulsions, and more.

The cluster will seek origins and identity in Jewish material culture staged in various ensembles, such as illustrated travelogues, theatrical performances, and exhibitions since the late 19th century in different cultural and geographical contexts. It aims to answer the question of what has been staged as Jewish material culture against the backdrop of acculturation and the remembrance of religious and national traditions in various diasporas. In addition to analysing collections and exhibitions in different Jewish and non-Jewish museums and at memorial sites, doctoral researchers will be encouraged to actively participate in curating an exhibition on Jewish material culture.